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Opinion
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- The Conversation (UK) Read
Digger channels Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove for the climate crisis – until its twist
Warning: this article contains major spoilers for Digger. In director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new film Digger, the eponymous Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) puts on his Stetson first thing in the morning. It’s an embodiment of his credo: “Rise early, work hard, strike oil.” He is rarely without it as he rides roughshod through the extinction-level environmental catastrophe his drilling company has caused.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Rebel Rebel the Musical stages David Bowie’s dystopian vision
“If you can listen to Rebel Rebel and not be a tiny bit glad you’re alive,” the Irish writer Joseph O’Connor once claimed, “you’ve got an answering-machine for a heart”.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
The ick: the psychology of why a romantic partner can suddenly repulse you
Ever felt a sudden wave of cringe toward someone you were into – all because they wore questionable shoes or chewed a bit too loudly? Congratulations, you’ve caught “the ick”.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Why antidepressants can stop working after initially helping
Antidepressant use continues to rise. In England, 96 million antidepressant prescription items were dispensed to an estimated 9.1 million patients in 2025 to 2026. These medicines are prescribed for depression and other conditions, including anxiety and some forms of pain.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Did the hot summer make more people worry about climate change? Here’s what the latest indications show
This summer broke records around the UK for maximum temperatures and dry weather. According to the UK’s Met Office, while it was rare to hit 35°C in the 20th century, that temperature has been surpassed in six out of the past ten years. And it’s only expected to get higher. Rising temperatures not only contribute to illness and deaths, but also to wildfires, water shortages and the collapse of infrastructure and services. So has this changed the public’s attitudes at all? According to
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Nobel physics prize awarded for discovery of ‘ghostly messengers’ from the cosmos
The 2026 Nobel prize for physics has been awarded to Francis Halzen for his discovery of high energy neutrino particles from space.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Taylor Swift’s new video marks her ghostly return to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
In 2020, Taylor Swift told us she read Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the 1938 bestseller about a young bride haunted by the memory of her husband’s glamorous first wife. Swift described how it inspired her while she was writing Tolerate It for her ninth studio album Evermore, which came out the same year.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
The UK and Denmark: a dentist assesses the state of the nations’ teeth
England and Denmark are both wealthy, welfare-minded nations – so why is one catching dental problems early, and the other catching up?
- The Conversation (UK) Read
What helps children feel safe at school?
The issue of children missing school in England remains an urgent problem. New data shows that in the 2024-25 academic year, 18% of pupils were persistently absent, meaning that they missed 10% of their morning and afternoon sessions at school – around 19 days.
- Opinion | The Guardian Read
While British children go hungry, we waste 1.1bn meals a year. Bring on the redistribution revolution | Charlotte Hill
Food businesses and the government must make redistribution a key policy to address food insecurity. We know the surplus food is out there, says Charlotte Hill, chief executive of the food redistribution organisation Felix
- Opinion | The Guardian Read
Burnham’s surprise EU-turn could deliver the Tories from a generational mess | Gaby Hinsliff
Badenoch would never have reopened the door on Brexit, but now that the PM has, it suits the Conservatives to let him walk through it, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
- Opinion | The Guardian Read
Badenoch is trying to match Farage step for step – but it’s a dance of death for the Tories | Polly Toynbee
At conference here in Birmingham I found a small battalion of centrist remainers with a vision for the Conservative party to come, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Why endometriosis pain can continue after treatment
Treatment for endometriosis can bring relief, but some women continue to have pelvic pain even after hormone treatment or surgery. For those who have spent years seeking help, continuing pain can be distressing and difficult to understand.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver: the touching story of a musician striving to bring the movements of her life together
A partita is a musical composition, often for a soloist. As Livia, the protagonist of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book, explains to Sigurd, as they begin an all-consuming romance, it’s “made up of a lot of parts with different paces and moods. […] The parts are all different, and the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.”
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Does increased childcare funding help mothers into work?
Since Labour won the 2024 general election, policy focused on children in the early years – from birth to school age – and their parents has moved sharply up the political agenda.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Rhinos and elephants can cause huge problems if reintroduced badly – here’s how to get it right
Moving large animals around is a seductive idea in conservation. If there are plenty of animals in one place and too few in another, moving some between the two seems an obvious solution. Sometimes it is. But with animals as large, mobile and socially complicated as elephants and rhinos, the move itself can turn out to be the straightforward part.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Unusual senses: the secret superpowers of amphibians and reptiles
The Surinam toad is one of the strangest frogs on Earth. Flat-bodied, tiny-eyed and adapted to the murky waters of the Amazon basin, it hunts well despite having very poor vision. When a fish swims close, the frog suddenly opens its mouth and sucks the prey inside in a fraction of a second.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
The curious case of the bear in the Bayeux tapestry – what it tells us about baiting in medieval England
New research reveals how bears became more common in English towns after 1066, helping illuminate the history of bear baiting.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
How pond algae led to a Nobel prize and a new way to study the brain
Scientists who worked out how to control brain cells with light have won this year’s Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were honoured for their research into “light-gated ion channels and optogenetics”.
- The Conversation (UK) Read
Why some Indigenous communities don’t resist oil extraction in their territories
More than half of the Ecuadorian Amazon has been marked for oil drilling, overlapping with Indigenous territories and areas of high biodiversity. The ecological and cultural impacts of oil extraction are well documented, and have fuelled some of Latin America’s most prominent environmental movements. Yet at the local level, extraction is not always met with resistance.
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